Thanks...your comments as well those from others have helped to clarify things immensely.

So, someone said here the script/screenplay are more or less the same thing. My biggest hope is that we don't end up with the same stilted/awkward dialogue from the PT. Is the reason for that dialogue because George Lucas wrote the screenplay and was also the director so little to no modifications/tweaks were made along the way?

No problem!

First, I really like the PT and think GL gets alot of undeserved bashing for it. However, there asre definitely some tweaks I would have made. And as for your last question -- YES! Definitely. GL didn't have an editor and everything he wrote essentially went into the film. He definitley could have used a co-writer. We would have gotten better dialogue and less or at least funnier Jar Jar.

For the record, I like the PT films for what they are and I appreciate their contribution to the Star Wars universe. However, the dialogue throughout the PT films was stilted at times and that hurt the overall quality of the films. My biggest hope is that they find a way to eliminate that kind of dialogue/acting for the ST films. Also, using more real world location shooting as opposed to primarily green screen would also help to give the films a more realistic look that won't become antiquated like some of the CGI shots from the PT are beginning to do.

Actually, the line could easily be blurred between outlines and treatments. I'm an industry professional and I've heard both terms used and applied to the other, if that makes sense. And, yes, there are always gaps in treatments, but some treatments have more gaps than others. For example a 7 page treatment is usually going to have more gaps than a 15 pager.

A treatment can be as little as a single page and include all the characters........but it really doesn't matter, whatever happens it'll be Arndt's dialogue spoken by the actors in which ever director's vision of Episode VII. GL will recieve the credit for characters and story even though he'll only be providing the road map for the story to follow.

A treatment can be as little as a single page and include all the characters........but it really doesn't matter, whatever happens it'll be Arndt's dialogue spoken by the actors in which ever director's vision of Episode VII. GL will recieve the credit for characters and story even though he'll only be providing the road map for the story to follow.

It is good to know that it will be Arndt's dialogue as opposed to Lucas'.

Actually, the line could easily be blurred between outlines and treatments. I'm an industry professional and I've heard both terms used and applied to the other, if that makes sense. And, yes, there are always gaps in treatments, but some treatments have more gaps than others. For example a 7 page treatment is usually going to have more gaps than a 15 pager.

Likewise, a 40 page treatment most likely indicates a scene by scene outline, or nearly that. That's about right for a 120 page script. I work in TV and when I've compiled scene by scene treatments for 50 page scripts they're usually about 15 pages. They tend to contain a lot of details on how scenes go, snatches of dialogue, and alternate ideas that can be used.

Agreed - 40 pages would be very in depth, scene by scene stuff with pretty much just the dialogue to add. On this one though, the reports mention the 40-50 pager covers the entire trilogy, so you'd be looking around 15 pages per Episode. Normally my treatments for a feature script are around the 15 page mark but I have gone into much more detail at around 30 - 40 pages. Of course, you get far more detail in but equally, no one wants to read that much if they can help it so, sometimes, the less pages the better. Really it all boils down to what feels right I think.

Hopefully the team of Arndt, Kasdan and Kinberg will balance out any individual weaknesses. I've got faith that Arndt will bring pathos and Kasdan will get back to the core spirituality of the OT. (What Kinberg brings to the table, I'm not sure.)

For what it's worth, it's been reported on IMDB's front page (out of two different sources, one of them HR), and on Dark Horizons' newsdesk. One would hope that the rumour's founded, with how fast it's been spreading...

Hopefully the team of Arndt, Kasdan and Kinberg will balance out any individual weaknesses. I've got faith that Arndt will bring pathos and Kasdan will get back to the core spirituality of the OT. (What Kinberg brings to the table, I'm not sure.)

1) I never said it had to be one person but it makes sense that would be because that's simplest. Why hire more that one writer to write was is essentially one movie? It's unnecessarily complicating things.

I'm just going to address this point very quickly.

In what universe does any studio do things based on efficiency? At least on the production end of things, they do some of the most insanely nonsensical things, even on the good productions, if they think it might be to their advantage somehow. Don't ever assume logic applies to this industry. People here are crazy.

Edit and addendum: this goes triple for anything Disney is involved in. No joke.

Oh I completely agree with you--no arguments from me on that. There may very well be a list of writers when all is said and done--look what they went through for Indy 4 (and I'm sure 5 will go through the same if they ever get around to it.) And maybe I am crazy to be thinking logically about this haha.

It just seems a bit strange to have Arndt write a treatment for the whole trilogy, then start penning episode VII, only to bring in additional writers for (presumably) the sequels. As far as we've heard he hasn't even completed the first draft yet (although I haven't checked the news recently.)

Indy went through so many writers and so many drafts because Lucas and Speilberg couldn't agree on a satisfactory script. Using that logic (should I even bother?) one would think that they would at least let Arndt turn them in a finished later draft to see how good it is before bringing in more hired guns.

Unless there is something we don't know, like maybe Arndt has a scheduling conflict that prevents him from penning the sequels, or Kasdan and others are just being brought in as consultants or script doctors (although there has to be a finished script before any doctors can go to work on it.)

Also not to be dismissed is that Lucas offered the writing job for the PT to Kasdan and Kasdan turned it down. Kasdan hasn't written a script for a film he didn't direct since ROTJ. And he didn't even want to write ROTJ. He only did it because he felt he owed Lucas for giving him his shot in Hollywood. Yeah maybe Disney offered him alot of money but I'm sure Lucas didn't offer him peanuts either when he asked about the PT job.

But who knows? Maybe his mind has changed. He hasn't done anything good for a while now and a good Star Wars sequel could re-ignite his career. I for one, will throw a party if he gets the job, but in this crazy world of Star Wars rumors I'm not getting my hopes up until it's official.

On a side note, does anyone else think Lawrence Kasdan looks like Michael Moore?

What Kinberg likely brings to the table is a Hollywood hackness and deep misanthropy (Based on Mr. & Mrs. Smith).

And this is not a rumour anymore, its fact.

Frankly, if he wasn't mentioned in the same sentence as Kasdan (who is the most logical choice to write Star Wars, if Lucas isn't available), then I would be panicking.

How do you mean it's not a rumor? Or do you mean the HR confirmations (which I'm not disputing)?

Yeah, I just mean that if it's been reported by the Hollywood Reporter than it is (at this point anyway) a real thing. People seem to be treating it as a rumour because the official website hasn't issues a press release or posted a video.

Yeah, I just mean that if it's been reported by the Hollywood Reporter than it is (at this point anyway) a real thing. People seem to be treating it as a rumour because the official website hasn't issues a press release or posted a video.